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Mista_Mobsta
Expert Member
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2015
- Messages
- 3,376
I recently decided to try and resurrect an old HP ProBook 4520s that a family member donated to me - they claimed it was too slow and useless for what they need to do. Dusted it off and booted it and lo and behold, the battery conked out. All good, I will order a new one I thought. I plugged in the charger and booted into Win10. All fine and dandy until you want to do anything in Win10. Checked out the specs and it's a decent i5 with 3GB RAM. I decided to order a SSD, a new battery and 8GB DDR3 RAM. 2x4GB will do. I read up about this unit on Google and it just said I needed to ensure it's DDR3(L). Ordered some Transcend DDR3 1600 sticks and waited.
Delivery comes through quick on all the items and I start the install. All goes well until I have to boot into Windows. Loooooooooong story short, it seems HP was very vague on exactly what specific DDR3 units are compatible with the laptop. I eventually went down the forum rabbitholes and found out that this specific laptop is only compatible with low-density DDR3 units. At first I thought it was only compatible with CL9 1333 (10600) sticks but after reading through numerous forums, it seems low-density is the only way to go.
This got me thinking - who else has had a run in with stupid issues like this? There is no way in the BIOS to adjust memory speed as the BIOS is extremely basic. Yes - I did upgrade the BIOS. The BIOS even picks up the RAM properly as 8GB but it doesn't load past the boot menu and just resets constantly.
I can't get a refund for the RAM I bought so if anyone is interested, I have 2x4GB of brand new Transcend 1600 DDR3 SO-DIMM sticks.
Delivery comes through quick on all the items and I start the install. All goes well until I have to boot into Windows. Loooooooooong story short, it seems HP was very vague on exactly what specific DDR3 units are compatible with the laptop. I eventually went down the forum rabbitholes and found out that this specific laptop is only compatible with low-density DDR3 units. At first I thought it was only compatible with CL9 1333 (10600) sticks but after reading through numerous forums, it seems low-density is the only way to go.
This got me thinking - who else has had a run in with stupid issues like this? There is no way in the BIOS to adjust memory speed as the BIOS is extremely basic. Yes - I did upgrade the BIOS. The BIOS even picks up the RAM properly as 8GB but it doesn't load past the boot menu and just resets constantly.
I can't get a refund for the RAM I bought so if anyone is interested, I have 2x4GB of brand new Transcend 1600 DDR3 SO-DIMM sticks.